A HALSTEAD student has launched one-man campaign to blitz the stigma attached to mental health conditions.

Jack Berkeley (pictured), 20, decided “something needed to be done” after coming across statistics online about mental health.

He said: “This all started when I was scrolling through my social media and came across a staggering fact.

“I saw that one in four people struggle with a mental health condition and it honestly astounded me.

“I started to look into it a lot deeper and realised how overlooked as an issue it actually is.

“Suicide was the leading killer of young people in the UK and it was reported that 51 per cent of people feel too embarrassed to speak about it.”

Jack, who currently studies team entrepreneurship at university in Lincoln, decided to make a stand against the issues he had seen online.

He said: “With no experience in film-making and a budget of zero pounds, I made up a sign on just a bit of cardboard I found and wrote on it with a Sharpie.

“With nothing but my mate’s phone, I went and stood in Lincoln high street with it, ultimately hoping that strangers would come and share their stories about mental health.”

He added: “The idea behind it was to give people that opportunity to speak about something which has wrongly become a taboo subject, and I figured that if other people see someone standing up in public sharing their stories and struggles, then it would encourage them to realise that it is okay to speak so openly about it.

“We ended up on that day speaking to some amazing people who had previous struggles with their mental health, were currently battling with it or were even just trying to share their support.”

Jack’s campaign even attracted high-profile attention with Soccer AM presenter and award-winning comedian Lloyd Griffiths and ex-professional Lincoln City footballer Nathan Arnold taking part in the video.

Jack said: “My aim is to keep sharing this video, as the more people that see it, the more people that can be helped and realise they are not alone and that it is time to talk about their mental health struggles.”

He plans to continue making videos and using publicity stunts to raise awareness about a range of subjects in society today.

Jack’s video can be seen on YouTube.